jbaker@husc9.harvard.edu (James Baker) (01/17/91)
I am currently working on a new programming language for describing explicit motion. Although I realize that there are zillions of robot languages out there, I believe this one is somewhat unique in that it is founded on a formal relationship (which I am still developing) between Matt Mason's C-surface model for compliant motion and constraint programming. The base constraint satisfaction system is Wm Leler's Bertrand. (See Leler, Constraint Programming Systems, Addison-Wesley, 1988.) To go into more detail, CLEAR (Constraint Language for Environment And Robot) is to employ and preserve the nonprocedural (read parallel) semantics of constraint programming while giving the programmer a means of describing a procedure (without say an explicit reference to time, which is clumsy and nonintuitive especially for quasistatic operations). CLEAR also endeavors to be object-oriented but in a subtly different manner than more conventional object-oriented languages. One advantage of this object orientation, incidentally, is that it should facilitate compilation of the high-level description seen in constraint programming to something like C or C++. I would be interested in any thoughts you might have. Additionally, if anyone has seen a good robot simulation system on UNIX that is free or cheap and is easy to interface with, please write to me. -- Jim
hollombe@ttidca.TTI.COM (The Polymath) (01/18/91)
In article <JBAKER.91Jan16110101@husc9.harvard.edu> jbaker@husc9.harvard.edu (James Baker) writes: }... if anyone has seen a good robot simulation system on UNIX that is free }or cheap and is easy to interface with, please write to me. Please post it, too! The only commercially available system I've seen is Deneb's. It's great, but sells for something over $60,000. -- The Polymath (aka: Jerry Hollombe, M.A., CDP, aka: hollombe@ttidca.tti.com) Head Robot Wrangler at Citicorp(+)TTI Illegitimis non 3100 Ocean Park Blvd. (213) 450-9111, x2483 Carborundum Santa Monica, CA 90405 {csun | philabs | psivax}!ttidca!hollombe
demers@odin.ucsd.edu (David E Demers) (01/20/91)
In article <22740@ttidca.TTI.COM> hollombe@ttidca.TTI.COM (The Polymath) writes: >In article <JBAKER.91Jan16110101@husc9.harvard.edu> jbaker@husc9.harvard.edu (James Baker) writes: >}... if anyone has seen a good robot simulation system on UNIX that is free >}or cheap and is easy to interface with, please write to me. > >Please post it, too! The only commercially available system I've seen is >Deneb's. It's great, but sells for something over $60,000. There is also CimStation, from Silma (designed by J. Craig, I believe), which we use. Also very expensive. $20,000 - $100,000 depending on options. I like it a lot. -- Dave DeMers demers@cs.ucsd.edu Computer Science & Engineering C-014 demers%cs@ucsd.bitnet UC San Diego ...!ucsd!cs!demers La Jolla, CA 92093-0114 (619) 534-8187,-0688